


Shattered- No, Crushed.

by MamaKat (K4KY01N)



Category: Steven Universe - Fandom
Genre: Crushes, F/F, Jasper is very gay and isn't used to it, Romance
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-10-24
Updated: 2019-10-25
Packaged: 2021-01-02 06:18:15
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,724
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21156998
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/K4KY01N/pseuds/MamaKat
Summary: It's late, and during one of the movie nights Steven oh-so often drags her into, Jasper sees a new human custom, unlike all the others.





	1. Invited

_"Carnelian X8-5," Jasper said calmly, hiding the hidden layer of quivering fear underneath her. She had so recently formed, and this Carnelian was so pretty, she didn't know what to do with herself. She took a sharp breath in. _

_"Jasper, you have been on this colony for nearly four months now. I'm surprised you haven't shattered yet. Unless you are spoken to, be _ _/quiet./" The Carnelian spoke sharply, in a manner that didn't fit her beautiful appearance. Jasper swallowed the lump in her throat, the one that keeps rising up and makes her think that maybe her neck was formed wrong; her body was perfect, the way she left her hole was perfect, and yet people stared at her as if she were defective simply for being curious.. The Carnelian finished her examination, and stood upright. "What was it that you were going to say, Jasper?"_

_Jasper stared, and tightened her body. She stood upright. She was ridiculed for speaking. Further insulting her with comments about her appearance will not go over well. She puffed out her chest, and slicked her hair back with a hand. "N-Nothing, Carnelian. I'm sorry, ma'am." _

_The Carnelian seemed nonplussed. She wrote something down, then went to the next quartz._

\-------------------------------------

Jasper's vision was never so blurry when she would wake up in the cold entrance of the barracks. Her eyes quickly got used to the sight of waking up to a dim light, and the other Quartzes standing at their bedposts, waiting on her. It was simple, and she always knew what to do. She had her purpose, and that was to make sure the Earth colony was defended. Maybe she wasn't happy, but that's because she wasn't meant to be. 

But now, she seems to always wake up in a different place. She sleeps when she's tired, she eats when she wants, and all around lays about, doing nothing of value. Today, it was already after noon, around 1 PM. Her eyes lifted to a bright light, dimmed only by a pair of sunglasses that had been placed on her in her sleep. She straightened her back, feeling each joint in her spine pop and crack as she arched. As she lifted herself up, a blanket fell off of her massive body, onto her lap. She reached down and lifted it up, causing a small post-it note to come fluttering gently down. It was nearly whisked away in the gentle breeze-- but a Jasper is better than to let her target get away. A Jasper is good, and powerful, and--

...and none of that matters anymore. Jasper took a deep breath, and looked at the note.

_"Jasper!" _ The note began, written in dense Gem-ese. _"Me and Pearl are having a movie night! I know you don't have much to do these days, so you should come! I don't know what's playing.. apparently it's some french movie? It has english subtitles, though. Wait. Can you read english? I probably shou"_

The note quickly ran out of space. Jasper strained her eyes trying to read the infintessimally small handwriting as is; unless Steven wanted to write a letter on each nanocarbon of the paper, it'd be hard to get much smaller than this. A movie. Stupid. Why would she see a 'Movie?' She's heard tell that some homeworld gems were made specifically for wonderful performances, all for the diamonds... Of course, she'd never seen one. But apparently they were great.

Jasper crunched up the note, and reared her arm back to throw it onto the beach.. only to settle, and slip it into her pocket. Right. She has pockets now. She ran a hand over the lining of her varsity jacket. Steven and Connie gave it to you as a 'Glad You're Not Corrupted Anymore' present. It's apparently from Connie's high school. Even with the biggest size they have, it's a little tight. Apparently Pink-Diamond jumpsuits made the gems on New Homeworld 'Uncomfortable,' so she had to change.

Jasper looked around herself. She must have fallen asleep while on guard. She stands at the balcony of a massive lighthouse, with a small beach chair that seems to have been distended because of her massive weight. She leans against the railing, and puffs out her cheeks. 

"What are you doing..? This is- it's STUPID." Jasper grips the hard stone railing, and feels it crack under her hand. "You don't need to guard anything. You're here because they want you out of the way. Because you got closest to killing Rose-- Pink.. Steven?" Jasper lets out a powerful yell, and grabs the end of the beach chair, throwing it with such force and fervor that it soars like a frisbee... directly into the ocean. She raises her fists up, and smashes them down onto the railing. One part of the railing collapses, sending a few chunks down... thankfully not hitting anyone. 

Jasper takes a step back, and slumps down, her back against the limestone wall of the lighthouse now. She grits her teeth. Like, really grits her teeth. If she were human, she would've cracked something. But she isn't human. She's a gem. She's a warrior made to destroy anything in her way! So why...

is she sitting alone, guarding a _god-damn LIGHTHOUSE?_

Jasper takes a breath. The air tastes like salt, mostly, but it has another strange taste to it. It tastes like.. one of those tubes that Steven grills up every now and again. Hot.. dogs? She sniffs the air a few more times. He's cooking again. He always cooks when he wants to attract a Quartz. If she waits, she'll miss the opportunity for hot dogs.. not that she wants a crummy hot-dog or anything, but..

Jasper bites the inside of her cheek. Okay. She'll stop by for one. Just one, and then after that she leaves. Oh, what if it's one of those delicious bacon-wrapped hot dogs that he makes on special occasions? Or maybe the ones he injects that awful human spray-cheese into? Or maybe.. just maybe..

Her brain is filled with the thoughts of a hot dog, filled to burst with spray-cheese, then wrapped in bacon, and grilled to perfection.. Wait.

The smell is getting stronger. That means it's getting closer. Oh, no, has Steven found out her hiding spot? She shimmies away, and tries to get perfectly opposite the lighthouse's upper entrance. There. Now he'll probably just assume she's gone elsewhere. Maybe to find him. Probably. She-

"Hi Jasper!" 

  
What.

Jasper looks up, and sees Steven jumping repeatedly, a small tupperware box (slightly opened to allow scent travel) full of hot dogs in his mitts. 

"Did.... You..... Get..... My..... Note....?" Steven says, interrupted by the sudden distance because of his descent. On his final travel up, Jasper simply leans out and grabs him by the head, pulling him over the railing and next to her. 

"Yes, Steven, I got your crummy note; I'm sad to say I'll have to reject your formal invitation for your 'Movie Night.' Not because I have prior engagements, but simply because I'd rather be shattered than watch some 'French' 'Film' with a rebel and his pearl." Jasper crossed her arms and slumped back. She didn't seem as angry, more disgruntled than anything else. She seemed like a bratty kid who just got told he can't have seconds. 

Steven puffed out his cheeks, looking stumped for a moment, before he lets out a small "oh yeah!" and opens up the tupperware further, revealing a set of hot-dogs placed neatly in buns. They're all set up the way she likes them, as well: The Works. Jasper can't resist these, he knows that for a fact. "Come on, Jasper! I made 'em special! I even got the poppyseed buns you like!" 

Jasper further knotted her arms together, and slumped further into a ball. 

"I even cut the hotdogs into little men, so you can pretend like you're defeating people in combat like old times!" 

Jasper leans a bit over, to look at the cute little hot dog men placed over a bed of onions, relish, ketchup, mustard, spray-cheese, and crushed up ritz crackers. That latter portion was from one of her many bonding lessons with Amethyst, who was the one that turned her onto eating in the first place. Jasper tries, desperately, to resist.

Of course, she fails quickly. Jasper lifts one up, as delicately as she can with such meaty fingers. She feels the heat. "Fresh cooked?" she asks, intending to be polite but coming off more as demanding. 

"Of course! I made 'em for you, after all." Steven simply smiles that patient smile she both hates and loves, and Jasper looks down at the hot dog again. She takes a bite, and can't hold back her pleasured grunt. It all blends together so well. She takes a few bites, swallows, then takes another bite, and in seconds, hot dog number one is gone. She lifts up one more, then another, and holds it out to Steven, wordlessly. Steven shakes his head. Though he never says it, he finds spray-cheese disgusting, and only does it in events where Jasper and Amethyst are in the same place. 

"It's weird how you and Amethyst get along, but you still seem so lonely." 

Jasper chokes on her hot dog, and gives Steven a questioning look. "What about it?" She replies, her mouth still half-full, "She's one of the only ones that actually held their own against me in combat. That, and she kinda got me into eating, so I suppose I owe her one." She swallows fully, and looks into the tupperware. One more hot dog. "Besides, I'm not lonely."

"I mean.." Steven was about to reply, but simply shut his mouth instead. Good idea. 

Steven then followed that idea by immediately opening his mouth again and saying more dumb shit that'll get him punched. "..You kinda are? What do you do when Amethyst isn't around? Do you just sleep in the lighthouse? Do you sleep ON the lighthouse?"

Jasper cringes as she remembers throwing her chair into the ocean mere minutes ago. "...Nnnno... I just.. go around.." Which isn't a total lie, she does go around. Around the lighthouse, around Steven's porch, around... the beach.. "Okay, MAYBE," Jasper grumbled, "you have a bit of a point. I don't really have.. _friends._" She strained her words around Steven, trying to hold herself back from shouting and breaking things. "But do you really think putting me in the same room with your _pearl_ is going to give me friends?" Jasper punctuated that statement by taking a bite of the final hotdog, taking smaller bites this time to savor the complex flavors.

Steven looked perplexed for a moment. "Well.. you two really liked Pink Diamond, and you're really good fighters, and I thought you two could hit it off! You have a lot in common.." Steven pressed his fingers together. "Come on, please? The rest of us could trust you if you just came down and tried to show you're just like the rest of us!"

This set Jasper off. She immediately stood upright, and pointed down at Steven, still slouched over against the wall of the lighthouse. "I'm _NOT_ like _YOU!_ I am a perfectly constructed gem soldier, made to deliver decisive victory against my enemies, and poof, even shatter anyone who got in my way, even if it meant crushing, stealing, force-fusing my way to do it. I am a machine of _WAR,_ Steven, and I've seen things that even you, so-called 'leader of the Crystal Gems,' could never see in a world like this. I'm-" 

Jasper paused, and looked at Steven, who looked.. angry? Angry at.. her. Jasper's expression shifted to unease. "Jasper, I know you're scared," No, Steven wasn't angry, he just looked.. stern. "But you can't get better hiding out like this! It's going to be hard, and you're going to make mistakes, but you need to at least try! Please, just.." His expression softened, to one more sympathetic, and he took Jasper's hand, holding it with both of his. "..Just come to the movie. Make friends with Pearl. That'd be a good first step, right?" 

Jasper raised her free hand to her eyes. She's crying. She's been alive for thousands of years, and she's been stalwart so long. No shortage of her comrades being shattered, poofed, bubbled, corrupted on the battlefield. No lack in derisive commanders that would berate her for any semblance of incompetence.. and it's this kid that makes her cry. She wipes a tear away. "Steven, I.." She sucks air in through her teeth, and lets it flow back out. The taste of salt lingers on her tongue. She's not in the colony anymore. She's not defending the kindergartens.. She's on Earth. "..I don't know if I can make friends like you can." Steven looks a bit sad after that, and opens his mouth to speak, only to be interrupted again.

"When someone is weak on the battlefield, we leave them behind to get 'poofed,' or shattered. But you refuse to leave me behind." She grits her teeth. "..So I'll do as you say. I'll go to your movie. On one condition."

Steven lights up, and wraps his arms around Jasper. "Emotional Intimacy! The first step of friendship! Anything you want, Jasper, just say it."

Jasper looks pensive for a moment. "...I need a new folding chair. I kinda threw mine into the ocean."


	2. Chapter 2

Jasper, in most occasions, is comfortable with the concept of being uncomfortable. She spent a lot of her time pressed shoulder to shoulder with other Quartzes, or covered in bruises and cuts that weren't enough to poof her, but enough to give her a great deal of bellyaching; so the concept of being uncomfortable was never foreign to her. If there was one thing good about Earth, it was that she was comfortable a lot more now. She was able to lay back in a chair for most of the day, feeling the sun soak into her skin. She could eat when she wanted, provided she had the money, and she didn't have any real responsibilities to speak of. The latter gave her a bit of discomfort, but it was something of a 'net positive,' she thought.

But sitting in a lot packed with people and gems of all shapes and colors, something that would normally make her feel slightly at ease, made her feel like she was going to poof just from stress. It wasn't like she didn't know the reason, either. The reason was clear as day; Steven had positioned himself so that they were sitting on either side of Pearl, making it so that if she wanted to get Steven's attention, she'd have to go through Pearl. She didn't seem off-put about it, if anything, she seemed far more at ease in the cool of night than she did during the day. It suited her. Her pale-blue jacket illuminated around the edges from the movie projector above them, giving her a soft halo of light, her pale skin seeming to radiate light from within.. Jasper hated how looking at her made her feel. She was everything that Jasper wasn't, and while that originally made her feel smug, knowing that she was just a slender, skinny rebel who fought with meager blades, now she was a confident swordswoman who fought alongside a rebellion headed secretly by the youngest member of the Diamond Authority. Now she was a figure of grace and elegance, who fought with such prowess she could take out this entire crowd in moments. 

"Is there something on my face?" Pearl questioned, snapping Jasper out of her stupor. Jasper blathered for a moment, trying to find the proper words, before sighing. 

"Uh, no, you just.." Jasper wasn't sure where she was going to bring the conversation, but even if she did, she had a feeling the words would simply well up in her throat. "I.. no, nevermind." Jasper turned away from Pearl, her face flushed. She had no idea how she was feeling right now. It was a well of complex emotions, locked deep in her stomach that she'd rather hide than confront. She gripped her thigh as hard as she could. She winced at the pain, and pried her eyes away from the massive silver screen that had the rest of the audience enraptured. It was at this moment that she spotted a couple of figures in a distant chair, with their faces pressed together. One gem, the other a human. The gem smiled, and pulled away, bursting into small, quiet giggles. The human would soon join in, and they'd lean back in and join their lips together. 

Jasper stared, quizzically. What were they doing? Were they.. replicating something from the movie? Jasper looked at the screen, and flicked her eyes over the subtitle.. only to realize she can't read English. She gritted her teeth, and wrapped a hand around the arm of her chair, threatening to splinter and break the wood underneath. 

"Jasper, are you okay?" Pearl piped up again, causing Jasper to jolt. She glanced down at Pearl, and must have looked a bit more frightening than intended, because Pearl leaned back on instinct immediately. Jasper froze, and took a harsh breath.

"I.." Jasper looked flummoxed, and her face turned a deep orange in embarrassment. What kind of super-soldier was she, that she couldn't even read. She felt too embarrassed to say, so she just gestured loosely to the screen. Pearl turned to face the screen again, and her face flushed as well, this time a deep teal. 

"Wha- Oh!" Pearl stared at the screen, where two figures had pressed their lips together. Jasper followed her gaze, and immediately froze. Pearl pressed the tips of her fingers against her own mouth, and held back a smile. "Jasper, that's called 'kissing.' I know it's a bit of a foreign concept to you, but it's very common in both Gem and Human cultures these days!"

Jasper scrunched her face up. Don't deflect, don't act all haughty, don't- "I-I knew that! I just meant, um.." Jasper paused, trying to find a way to end her sentence. Of course, Pearl must have found the end of the sentence on her own.

"Did you mean you wanted to.." Pearl covered her mouth with her hands, and darted her irises around. "I'm flattered, Jasper, really, but kissing is typically only done with people who are very close," Pearl looked at the minimal distance between her and Jasper, "..emotionally speaking, of course."

Jasper crunched one arm of her chair with her tensing grip. "I didn't," she began, and quickly started her sentence over, "I mean, I'm not saying.. I didn't ASK, i meant.." Jasper darted her eyes around, and saw nothing but gem couples, human couples, and mixes of the two joining their lips together. She pressed a hand against her face, sweat beading at her forehead. "I didn't mean I wanted to.."

Pearl's eyes widened, and she reached a hand out. "Jasper, did I misread-"

Jasper smacked her hand away, and quickly stood up, knocking her chair to the ground. It caught a few people's attention, but they quickly turned back to the film, ignoring Jasper weaving in between chairs to head out to the more desolate parts of the beach. Pearl furrowed her brow, and crossed her arms.

\--

Steven stared at Jasper heading out into the sandier parts of Beach City's titular attraction, and got up to go after her; only to be tugged back on the collar by Pearl's single dainty, yet powerful pinky. "Don't bother, Steven, you know how she gets."

"I.." Steven began, and then deflated. "You're right." He dejectedly sat back into his folding chair, and laid his chin on his open hands... before lighting up. "Pearl!" He exclaimed, getting shushed by some of the people next to him, "What if... YOU talked to her?" 

Pearl quirked a brow. "Me? How would I be any better than you?" 

"Well, I think Jasper holds a lot of her feelings back from me because she still thinks of me as Rose.. or Pink Diamond. It confuses me, and I bet it's even more confusing for her. Maybe if you talk to her, she'll see you as an equal?"

This caused Pearl to blink in surprise. "An equal? Steven, she's not going to think of me as an equal when she can hardly talk to _you._" 

"Can you at least try?"

"But the movie.." Pearl stared at Steven's hopeful expression- not nearly as cute since he turned 18, but still effective- and then at the screen, and lets her brows fall. She lets out a small "The book was better anyway..." and climbs out of her chair, following Jasper's footsteps in the sand. She turns back to Steven for a moment, who gives her a happy thumbs up, and makes her way down.

\--

Stupid. Stupid. Why does she try. "I should never have even bothered, I should've told them to put me back in the bubble, I'd rather be 'poofed' than be in this pansy-paradise, all about 'feelings' and 'watching movies' and 'kissing,' whatever THAT is, I.." Jasper stopped marching, and stared out at the ocean. 

The moon was high in the sky, and the ocean seemed to reflect it perfectly. The moon, such a domineering celestial body in the small perspective of this planet, and the water, something still so vast that it seems to swallow the moon every morning. Yet in this moment, everything was still. The waves crashed, and the clouds above moved, but yet everything seemed perfectly still. Moving and statuesque in the same moment. A contradiction in and of itself, yet no less beautiful in it's absurdity. 

Jasper's hair billowed in the wind, and took in a deep breath. She took a step towards the ocean, and then.. hesitated. Her eyes were wide, and her foot was kept inches away from the surface. Then, in a split moment, a wave crashed, and a droplet splashed against her heel. She went careening back, and her back slammed into the sand. She pushed wet sand away from her in an effort to get away from the water. She was hyperventilating, she was.. she was breathing. She never breathed before she was reformed, before she was.. corrupted, no, far before that..

She never breathed until there was no air around her.

A vision flashed in her mind. Green skin, her massive hands, bound down by chains invisible, indistinguishable from the water around her, but ever present. Her hands glowing, splitting apart, then colliding back together, kept as someone other than herself, losing herself in the feeling, losing herself in being Malachite, losing herself in a prison of her own design. She begged, silently, in her own mind, to let her split, to be free from Malachite, and she heard herself say no. 

A hand grazed her shoulder. She jolted, and turned. Her helmet formed around her head on instinct, but she threw herself backwards rather than forwards- when did that start happening? Through the orange-tinted visor, she saw a Pearl, no, just. Just Pearl.

"I'm sorry if I made you uncomfortable, Jasper." She said calmly, not put off by Jasper's own willingness to attack. "...Are you okay?"

Jasper's helmet faded out, and she cleared her throat. "Uh," she started, looking at the ocean, "..Fine. Just fine, thanks. You can go back to your movie now." 

Pearl tightened her brows for a moment, before letting herself relax. "I would rather stay, if that's okay with you," Pearl sat down, her legs crossed, and gave Jasper's bicep a light squeeze. "Is it okay for me to stay?"

Jasper's immediate instinct was to say no. If she was gone, she could have her panic attack in peace. But.. that isn't what she really wanted, was it. "I.. Do what you want."

"I'll stay, then."

There was a pause, almost a minute in length, where they said nothing to each other. They listened to the movie, in thick french, playing a distance away, they listened to the waves crashing at the shore, but most of all they listened to the wind. Each other's breathing. When there was a pause in the wind's gusts, they would both breathe in, and when the wind would blow again, they'd breathe out. In a strange synchronicity that only gems that learned to breathe would have.

"..I wish I never came to this planet."

Pearl didn't immediately respond with a 'how dare you,' or a 'but this planet is so nice!' She simply remained silent, and looked at her.

"If I had never come to this planet," Jasper started again, staring out into the ocean, staring at the bright white circle ruptured by the moving waves, "then I never would have hurt myself like I did, I never would've hurt the Lapis Lazuli we found fluttering back to Homeworld, and I never would've.." 

Jasper grabbed a handful of sand, and let it drift through her fingers. 

"I know." Pearl slipped her fingers through the gaps in Jasper's own, just as the sand finished slipping through. She clasped it tightly, and simply stared. "I expected you to turn me away, you know." 

"I expected to turn you away, too," Jasper grunted, her other hand sinking into the sand. "I don't know why I didn't." 

"Maybe it was because you wanted to actually tell me what you were going to ask me?"

Jasper got that flummoxed look on her face again. "I... no, it's stupid, I just.."

"Please, Jasper?"

"..." Jasper mumbled something, that Pearl couldn't quite pick up on.  
"..Pardon?"

"I.... can'treadhgdksgm.."

"One more time?"

"AUGH," Jasper grunted, "I CAN'T READ ENGLISH." 

Pearl's eyes widened. "Oh? OH! You never went to any of those classes we taught on English?" 

"No. I was too busy."

"Busy... sleeping on the Lighthouse?"

"Yes."

Pearl held back a laugh, stifling it into a small snicker. 

"Hey, come on! It's important work! Somebody has to guard Little Homeworld.." Jasper tried to be serious, but couldn't help but smile in return. "Okay, yeah, no, it was a dumb waste of time."

"No, no, I understand. It comes naturally to you, right?" Pearl smiled softly, with a hint of surprise that Jasper was actually smiling, "Or rather, it was ingrained into you from your first forming.. I still do 'pearl things' sometimes."

"What, folding all your Diamond's clothes into neat little squares and make all his meals?"

"No!" Pearl said haughtily, before.. fading back to her flushed expression. "Well, I do make him breakfast sometimes. Only when he's too sick to do it himself. He's a grown man."

"What the hell is a 'man?'

Pearl stared for an uncomfortable amount of time. It took a conscious effort not to laugh, let alone smile, at Jasper's lack of knowledge at Earth life and culture. She's like a Himbo, only a girl. If only there was a word for that. Pearl lifted her spare hand, and fully encapsulated her hands around Jasper's own. Even with both her hands, she couldn't fully wrap it around the meat of her palm. She managed to keep her smile soft and warm, like she's known for, and laid against Jasper's bulky arm. "Jasper," she started, "Would you like some one-on-one time, to better help acclimate you to Earth life?"

Jasper stared at Pearl, and nodded. "I, er, yes," she said simply, before failing to hold back her followup. "What was that thing the people at the movie were doing, again..?"

Pearl looked up at Jasper. She had a small twinge of blue on her cheeks, her gaze half-lidded with a soft smile to match it. "That was called kissing, Jasper. Everyone on Earth does it at least once. I.. wasn't so fond of using my mouth in such a strange way at first. But when you kiss someone, holding them in your hands, everything else falls away. It's one of the simplest ways to show love, and yet, one of the most powerful."

Jasper remained quiet. Pearl was beautiful tonight. 

"It's settled, then. I'll come and retrieve you tomorrow. For now.. I'd like to see the end of the movie."

Jasper nodded. "I think I'll skip out." She just wanted to watch the waves.

Pearl stood up, and left without another word.

Kissing.


End file.
